The grand story. And we ripped up the ending, and the rules, and destiny, leaving nothing but freedom and choice. Which is all well and good, except... well, what if I've made the wrong choice? How am I supposed to know?
. . .
Choice plagued Castiel from the moment Dean Winchester coaxed the concept from him, took a seed of doubt hesitantly revealed in a playground in the early November morning, and nurtured it into full-blown rebellion and treason. Choice has been the bane of his long existence, and now the source of his greatest joys. But there is something soothing and comforting about periodically relinquishing the need for that choice and living by strict, arbitrary, and even capricious rule.
But he thinks the cheering at his misfortune may be slightly uncalled for.
Throwing his brightly colored money onto the table, Castiel huffs and takes his turn at the spinner, already muttering as he does, glaring across the table at the competition. "This game is inconsistent, requires no strategy, and encourages a materialistic view of adulthood, and I'm not certain. . ."
"Castiel, that will put you on the wedding square!" Samandriel's car is well ahead of his on the board now, a pink and blue peg in the front seat of the small green plastic vehicle, but it's Claire that has Castiel's attention when her bell-like laugh rings out again as she hands Cas the second blue peg for his car without needing to deliberate over who his tiny plastic spouse will be.
It is likely ridiculous how satisfying it is at this point in the game to plug that blue plastic pip into the passenger's seat.
". . . Not certain that is the lesson I would like for either of you to walk away with."
"You just hate losing." Claire teases, her dyed hair falling into her eyes as she worries her lower lip in her teeth as if she has to literally bite back her grins. "And you're a major control freak. The second we pick a game with dice or a spinner you try and talk us all into chess."
"I like chess." Cas mutters. Chess makes sense. Chess relies on strategy and skill. He is good at strategy and skill, and horrible with things requiring luck.
"You lose to a blind guy every time you're home. You need a new game."
Across the room, Bobby Singer snorts in amusement and tilts his head in their direction, still paying attention to them despite the Spanish soap opera on in the living room for him to listen to. "She's got you there, feathers."
"Your memory for the board and placement of chess pieces is good for your mental visualization and acuity. . ."
"You're just waiting 'til you win a game before you give up trying to beat me." Bobby snipes, and Jodi pokes him in the side with her toes, stretched out on the couch with her feet tucked beside him as she works on the paperwork for the sheriff's office.
"Play nice, Singer."
No, Castiel was fairly certain he wouldn't be satisfied until he had beaten the patriarch of his husband's family in strategy several times at least. He has something to prove there, whether he will admit it aloud or not. "I don't give up."
"Ain't that the truth." It is not the first time Gabriel has appeared unannounced inside Castiel and Dean's home, but it is the first time he has done so with an invitation. Swiping from Castiel's bowl of popcorn, he spins a chair around at the table, falling in between Castiel and Samandriel and eyeballing the board. "You're gonna lose this one, though, Castiel. You might as well bow to the inevitable."
"They're supposed to be learning perseverance from this discussion. You are subverting the message." Cas chastises, and picks up a card on his next turn, squinting at it. Sunny Days Inn is apparently going to be his new home. For an inane amount of money. Huffing, Cas lays down his card in front of him, parts from the majority of his remaining currency, and passes the turn on to Samandriel.
Samandriel, whose LIFE token indicates he has 'scored with Miss America contestant' and should collect $10,000. Samandriel looks at the token with some confusion, before collecting his money from a giggling Claire. Castiel shoots a sideways glance at his elder brother, skeptical of Gabriel's innocence as he stuffs another handful of popcorn in his mouth.
"Where are Mutt and Jeff? Tell me they're out killing someone, or doing something to break up this shameful display of modern domesticity."
"Have you killed anything interesting lately?" Samandriel asks, turning his eyes to the Trickster, and Gabriel grins. "See, that's what I like about this place. The light dinner conversation."
"Anna thinks we're a bad influence on him." Arguably the last innocent angel in the world, and he spent most of his days around Bobby Singer, Jodi Mills, and Claire Novak, helping at the ministry when he wasn't helping Bobby, and when Sam, Dean and Castiel were away.
"Uh-huh." Gabriel doesn't sound like he's going to argue against that point, and Castiel sighs. His sister has integrated elsewhere; Anna did not intend to hunt, and avoided them when they did. The Winchesters saw her rarely, but Castiel took comfort in knowing that she had gotten a human life back, what she had envied the entire time and fallen for. Keeping away from them ensured her normalcy.
Samandriel, however, never quite drifted away. Dean smirkingly assumed there was another reason for it than family, but Castiel has missed his meaning so far.
Claire's next turn changes her profession, and she grins as she turns the card to face Cas, Gabriel and Samandriel, a cartoon figure of a woman dressed in a leopard print corset and knee-length boots. "Apparently I'm a Porn Star now."
Somewhere between Castiel scolding a cackling Gabriel for changing their game cards, Samandriel turning scarlet to the roots of his blonde hair and trying not to look at Claire, and Claire herself cheerfully noting that her new salary would nearly ensure she won the game, Dean and Sam spilled into the house from the back porch carrying burgers and hotdogs and arguing.
". . . ashamed of us or something? You've been dating this chick for how long and I haven't even met. . ."
"Three weeks, Dean, it's not like we've exchanged keys or anything. I mean, we disappeared for the vampire thing for part of that anyway and . . ."
". . . 'and' you were online on your computer every night with her, geek boy. Don't try and pretend you weren't, I swear we could hear you at like two AM through that motel wall . . ."
". . . are you seriously going to open the conversation up to things heard through motel walls, Dean? Do you really want to go there with me?"
"I'd prefer you didn't." Castiel interjects from the table, deliberately calling their attention back to their guests, blue eyes wide, and he stops just short of waving his hands to signal them to stow the teasing for later. Gabriel, however, raises his hand and smirks wickedly. "I could stand to hear a little more."
"Pervert." Dean jibes easily, dropping the burgers down in the middle of the kitchen counter and throwing a pickle at Gabriel's head. "You should never be left around the kids."
"You realize I am actually older than you." Samandriel shuffles the LIFE tokens again, looking impossibly young as he does.
"And you're kinda late in saving me, Dean. He already made me a porn star." Claire informs them easily, completely without context, just to mess with them.
"They don't count years as an angel." Castiel informs his younger brother evenly, with the clear tones of long dissent on the matter, but he's eyeing Samandriel nonetheless. No, he's relatively certain he views Samandriel as something of a teenager too, or the young adult his vessel appears to be. Perhaps selective ageism is an acquired and inherently hypocritical trait.
"Go back to explaining what the hell you meant with the porn star thing." Dean's spluttering.
"Don't you even." Jodi interjects from the living room, pulling Bobby up with her as she rises from the couch. "She's not legal, Gabriel, and you'd be skinned for thinking it."
"Oh, I'm not the one thinking about it. . ." Gabriel mutters under his breath, eyeing Claire, and then pointedly looking at Samandriel, who is still pink around the ears. Claire grins in response to Gabriel and shrugs silently. Castiel's not certain he's comfortable with how well his vessel's daughter and his elder brother are getting along, either, now that Dean has mentioned it. It has the potential to become conspiratorial, and he's still not entirely certain what's going on.
"I'm almost legal."
"You're still in high school, kid, and you're going to finish it, and then we can argue about . . ."
". . . Hey, speaking of. I have a history final tomorrow. Think you could help me study, Andy? I mean, you saw it right. . .?" Claire turns to Samandriel, smiling coyly as Gabriel mouths 'Andy?' questioningly to Dean, who shrugs as he chops up onion for burgers. "We already had a Sam. She didn't like his vessel's name. He seems okay with it."
Gabriel snorts. "Yeah, well, that's shocking. An angel unquestioningly accepting a nickname from a human. Never seen that before." Cas is fairly sure the kick in the ankle he receives was meant for his brother, though he is not certain who dealt it.
"Dinner." Sam interjects, dropping a salad bowl in the middle of their game board and consequently breaking up the bickering before it can get any more ribald. Suddenly everything is crowded, close quarters, too much personality in one small space, and Castiel grimaces faintly as he makes room for Dean to set down the burgers by slipping out of his seat, giving his space up to Bobby. "I'll clear the table and put the games away."
He needs to escape for a moment.
Their home isn't much, Castiel knows. There are two-bedroom suites at hotels across the United States that rival or beat it in square footage, but never at the sort of motels they stay in. There's not space for more than their most used possessions, and their lives are nomadic enough that none of them really have much. Their books and the majority of their materials still stay at Jodi's house a relatively short drive across Sioux Falls, for men used to travelling across the country on the drop of a dime.
But it's theirs, a postage-stamp sized two bedroom prefabricated park-model cabin, tucked into Singer Salvage Yard, held in Bobby's name to keep away the media and the gawkers. They have a kitchen, with real food in the cabinets, and Dean buys him chocolate syrup and flavored creamer and keeps it in the door of the refrigerator just for his coffee. In front of the small television there's a couch that he and Dean usually claim, and a reclining chair for Sam, and at nights they still sometimes insist they're teaching Castiel about humanity, but actually spend the time bickering about their favorite movies. There is a bedroom for Sam, at the opposite end of the little cabin from their own, and though Dean has sadly watched his brother as if dreading the day he will declare intent to move out and drop out of the hunting life, Sam has set up speakers within it for his laptop and is slowly acquiring a collection of curious items found on their travels. Most importantly there is a bedroom that is theirs, his and Dean's, their clothes hanging in the closet together and a bed with soft sheets and a mattress that every time he sinks into it, he tells himself he never wants to move again.
Castiel doesn't know where the money for the little house actually came from, if it was acquired illegally or not, but he likes to think sometimes that this was given to them, put aside for Dean and to Sam for what the world now knows they accomplished, for what they still fight for. Honestly, he personally has no idea how much such a thing would cost; like the game, everything seems arbitrarily assigned a fluctuating monetary value, particularly in a post-apocalyptic era of destabilized governments and Castiel finds it generally perplexing.
Humanity is still frequently bewildering.
This? This is the best part of it, though. Even after he takes the steps down from the covered porch to the graveled drive, he can hear laughter and bickering and teasing, the clattering of plates and cups, Sam defending his side dish, Claire complaining about salad with burgers, and Bobby complaining about Claire complaining, and Gabriel trying to goad anyone into revealing more about Sam's girlfriend, inevitably with the intent of teasing her, and they sound so breathtakingly alive all of them.
The game pieces rattle as he pushes the box into the cab of Bobby's old truck, now handed down to Claire, securing it behind her bookbag on the seat to keep it from sliding when she leaves. He doesn't hear the crunch of gravel until he feels himself being yanked back by the belt loops, pulling him back flush against Dean.
"You're getting sloppy, Cas." Dean's breath is warm across the shell of Cas's ear, and Cas can hear the teasing grin coloring his voice without seeing it. He rolls his eyes, huffing quietly as he closes the truck door, leaning back into Dean pliably. "I was expecting you."
"Uh-huh. Sure you were." Dean crowds Cas forward, trapping him against the door of the battered old truck; Cas escaped the room because he was crowded and trapped, but contrary to all logic (Castiel's logic tends to short-circuit around Dean) being pinned here by Dean has the opposite effect. Dean is safety and comfort and late nights tangled in bed and trying to ensure as little space between them as possible. 'Personal space' is a concept so foreign between them that the incessant reminders of space in the past seem laughable now, a useless denial of the inevitable. They belong like this. "Either that means you weren't expecting me but you don't want to admit that if I was a demon you'd be toast right now, or you snuck out of the party just to get me out here so we were alone together. Which makes you kinda a tease."
Cas tips his head back onto Dean's shoulder as Dean mouths along the hinge of his jaw, baring his throat to Dean and hooking his arms back around the hunter, a hand splayed wide along the dip of his spine to keep Dean from pulling back. "Or I assumed that you'd notice that I stepped outside for air and follow me because you . . ."
Castiel doesn't get to finish his counter-argument: Dean tips his chin, claiming Cas's mouth in a branding kiss, off-center and awkward, Cas's back still pressed to Dean's chest, his head turned to meet Dean. It's enough to once again derail Cas's train of thought and leave Dean smug when he breaks it, both of them breathless, to smirk at him, hooking his chin onto Castiel's shoulder. "Sorry. All I was hearing was 'yeah, you're right on both counts, but I'm not going to admit it' and I. . ."
Castiel hooks his leg back through Dean's ankles, locks an arm around Dean's elbow, braces his weight against the truck door before him and pivots, ducking under Dean's arm and following the motion through until he bounces Dean back against the door of the truck, just to prove he can, just to prove he is not and never has been sloppy. He then steps into Dean and kisses him abruptly because he wants to and because it's not teasing if you have every intention of following through, and because Dean keeps talking. Dean grins, leaning back against the truck like he got there by choice, his voice teasing as Cas brackets him against the door. "Something to prove there, Cas?"
Cas's pupils are blown wide and his voice has dropped into the low, rough register that Dean translates into Batman voice and then sex voice and he knows Cas does that on purpose. "I am not a 'tease.' And I would not be 'toast.'"
"Break it up out there, you idjits, you've got people over. Don't make me let them hose you off. Dinner's getting cold and my beer's getting warm." Bobby's voice reaches them from inside the house, and Cas lets his breath out in a low sigh of frustration, resting his head against Dean's shoulder and closing his eyes. Dean doesn't have time to celebrate the affect he has on his angel. Cas braces his hands against the door on either side of him, a push-up motion that has him molding himself against Dean in a sinuous line before he leverages himself back, in a move that is unquestionably teasing. He'd know, because he used it on Cas first, and Cas is nothing if not a quick study. So when Cas holds a hand out to him, one corner of his lips quirked up faintly and blue eyes knowing, Dean shoots him a glare as he takes his hand.
"You're paying for that later."
Cas smiles, crinkling the corners of his eyes and brightening his features, and tugs on Dean's hand to pull them back towards their family, ready to face the chaos and close quarters again. "I truly hope so."
And so they still have their issues. Dean is still plagued by nightmares of Hell and a soul-deep ache, and Castiel still struggles with what he has done and what he became, and Sam is haunted by the lives Lucifer casually snuffed out. Cas is still painfully pessimistic, Sam still struggles with the hunting life, and Dean is still too quick to throw himself on the grenade for all of them. It's a part of them; they help each other through it. Castiel has always admired that purely human ability to adapt, to adjust, to thrive and love and laugh even in the strangest of conditions. This is a post-apocalyptic world, a world after the apocalypse, and his Father's work is still just as beautiful.
They are all battered, broken creatures in some way: the boy with the demon blood, the messiah who doubts God, the seraph who committed heresy, the archangel who rebelled, the blind hunter, the childless mother, the girl who saw too much. . . but together they work. Because they are family.
It has been a year this week since Castiel fell to earth.
It is a Thursday.
And they are finally home.
. . .
So, what's it all add up to? It's hard to say. But me, I'd say this was a test, and I think they did all right. Up against good, evil, angels, devils, destiny, and God himself, they made their own choice. They chose family. And, well... isn't that kinda the whole point?